Combination of events made sure team's chances went to water

Date: February 21 2013

Phil Lutton

The two reports into Australian swimming contained a vast amount of information. Phil Lutton boils it all down.

1. DASH FOR CASH

Australian swimming can hardly cry poor but it's clear the handling of finances over recent years has been questionable. The Independent Swimming Review took aim at the Swimming Australia committee and board, saying it had become reliant on grant funding (59 per cent of revenue) over commercial funding. This was classed as a ''high risk'' scenario that needed urgent change.

2. MIND GAMES

The Bluestone review, authored by Dr Pippa Grange, identified the lack of a team psychologist as a major blunder in London. It might sound like a luxury to some but it's standard equipment for many elite teams at the Olympics. Swimmers Kenrick Monk and Libby Trickett both identified this as a key deficiency in the midst of various meltdowns.

3. NO ONE ESCAPED

Both reports have been criticised for failing to name names but at the opposite end of the spectrum, almost every level of Australian swimming was apportioned some blame for the state of affairs before and during London. From the top executives right down to the coaches and swimmers, few emerged unscathed.

4. FROM LITTLE THINGS, BIG THINGS GROW

There was not one single cataclysmic moment when it all went sour. The report conducted by the Australian Sports Commission gave 35 recommendations on its own. Put simply, a snowball of mutually counter-productive events became too big for anyone to pull up before the first swimmer dived into the London pool.

5. LOW PERFORMANCE PLAN

The elite swimmers are the showpiece of Swimming Australia, just as the Wallabies are the showpiece of Australian rugby. Ensuring the right swimmers were prepared for the right events, physically and mentally, was the task of the high performance unit. The ASC report recognised this as a critical fail that had a direct impact on results in the London pool.

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